Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

This government has put gender equality at the heart of the workplace relations system through its reforms. This includes adding gender equality and job security into the objectives of the Fair Work Act. It's quite interesting, isn't it, that, after all those years of coalition government, gender equality and job security were never in the objectives of the act. We've prohibited pay secrecy, implemented recommendation 28 of Respect@Work to expressly prohibit sexual harassment in the Fair Work Act and provided appropriate dispute resolution avenues. We're providing greater access to unpaid leave.

Senator Hughes, why do you have so much difficulty with policies that are about supporting women in this country? Why do you get so angry when we do things on this side, as a government, to improve the position of women? Why would you object to the implementation of the Respect@Work recommendations? We have provided changes in the workplace system to improve the position of women in paid work. That is a good thing for women in this country, and it is a good thing for our daughters. (Time expired)

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.